Αλήτη µ' είπες µια ßραδιά

Thread: Αλήτη µ' είπες µια ßραδιά

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  1. TonyAp said:

    Default Αλήτη µ' είπες µια ßραδιά

    Could someone translate this old song?
    It's a very pretty tune, but I don't understand what it's saying.
    I know just enough Greek to be confused by song lyrics.
    I got the original lyrics at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WLd1_9Ae2s
    There's another video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvwlW...eature=related

    Αλήτη µ' είπες µια ßραδιά
    by Απόστολος Χατζηχρήστος

    Αλήτη µ' είπες µια ßραδιά
    χωρίς καµιάν αιτία
    Μα του αλήτη η καρδιά
    δεν σου κρατάει κακία

    Θα 'ρθει καιρός όµως µικρή
    που θα µετανοήσεις (or: να το µετανοήσεις)
    Για του αλήτη την καρδιά
    θα κλάψεις, θα δακρύσεις

    Αλήτη µ' είπες, µα εγώ
    χωρίς να σε µισήσω
    γελώ ακόµα κι' αν πονώ (or: κι' ας πονώ)
    για να µη σε λυπήσω
     
  2. TonyAp said:

    Default

    I've been working on this all day, with lexicon and web sites, and I think I've figured it out.
    But if anyone can check and tell me where I've got it wrong, I'd appreciate that.

    A tramp you called me one evening,
    without any reason.
    But the tramp's heart
    doesn't bear you any malice.

    There'll come a time in but a little
    when you'll change your mind.
    For the tramp's heart,
    you'll weep, you'll shed tears.

    A tramp you called me, but I,
    far from hating you,
    laughed even though I hurt,
    so as not to pity you.

    I wonder if "tramp" conveys the original meaning, or is "bum" better?
    In English, "tramp" connotes sexual looseness, or else homelessness and poverty.
    "Bum" can mean homeless, but stresses poverty and non-sexual moral failings.
    Or is it something else entirely?
    The Oxford lexicon says "vagabond," which is not negative and maybe even a bit romantic.
    "Drifter" would be somewhere between "vagabond" and "bum."
    The second verse makes it sound like a love affair that has ended.
     
  3. Amethystos's Avatar

    Amethystos said:

    Default

    Translation can be found here -> http://www.stixoi.info/stixoi.php?in...tails&t_id=978 (Thanks to user Sinistro of stixoi.info)
    Where you can see that there's a big difference when we translate "Θα 'ρθει καιρός όµως µικρή"

    However, in this song the word "αλήτης" has more the meaning of "scammer" (untrustful) rather than bum.
    The word turned to have more "positive" meaning nowdays btw...
    "Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to?
    You will never find that life for which you are looking.
    When the gods created man they allotted to him death,
    but life they retained in their own keeping"
     
  4. TonyAp said:

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    Another great find, Amethystos! Thank you so much.

    So μικρή is feminine vocative? A girlfriend who's breaking up with him because she thinks he cheated on her? Or cheated on his taxes or his stockbrokerage clients? And αλήτης means something else now? Or now conniving is a good quality in men?

    It's interesting that I don't find the song on stixoi.info when I type in Αλήτη μ' είπες μια βραδιά
    or when I paste it in from the YouTube page: Αλήτη µ' είπες µια ßραδιά
    but I do find it when I paste it in from the stixoi.info page: Αλήτη μ' είπες μια βραδιά
    That's true even if I paste the YouTube and stixoi texts into my word processor first, where they appear to be identical, and then paste them from the word processor into stixoi. The one works and the other doesn't. There must be two different Greek code pages, so the same Greek letters can have different character codes. That would explain why I'm having so much trouble searching for lyrics on stixoi.
     
  5. stixoi.info said:

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    TonyAp, the tricky thing here is the apostrophe. In Greek there are three types of apostrophe as far as grammar is concerned. The symbol ΄ is used when it is used in the end of a word, the symbol ` is used for the start of the word. And in our keyboards, there also exists this one: ' which is basically the single quote character.

    At stixoi.info site, there is no rule for this and you had to bet a little bit or better, not use such parts of strings when searching. Most people used single quotes instead of real apostrophes when submitting lyrics. So if you searched with an apostrophe and the lyrics were submitted with a single quote, you would miss it.

    In the previous days, there has been an effort to clear things a little bit and about 90% of single quotes have been replaced with the appropriate apostrophe. The rest is going to follow.

    So, now I think it works better. Give it a try!

    Thanks
     
  6. TonyAp said:

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    Thank you for that very interesting information, and for the changes to the stixoi.info site.
    The search works now when I type the line in, and it works when I paste it in from YouTube.
    Ολα καλά! Ευχαριστώ πολύ.
     
  7. safe1 said:

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    actually you don't have to bother at all (in most cases) to put Greek characters in your search string... google is you friend...
    Why?

    That's why:



    and even this: